


"Oxytocis Ridiculous" or "Dido’s Cuddling Curse"

by RunRabbitRun



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Awkward Hugging, Forced Proximity, Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2015, M/M, Spells & Enchantments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 14:09:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7442200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunRabbitRun/pseuds/RunRabbitRun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley comes down with a mysterious curse that won’t allow him to get more than 100 paces from Aziraphale’s side. No one’s sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but there is hugging and ducks and a lot of wine involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Oxytocis Ridiculous" or "Dido’s Cuddling Curse"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hoshi_Ryo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoshi_Ryo/gifts).



> Beta'd by the ever-generous Meganbagels. This is actually a gift from the GO 2015 Exchange that I somehow FORGOT I WROTE until like just now. My prompt was “Aziraphale and the Hazards of Reading Old Magical Books Aloud. The more the caps are deserved, the better. Aziraphale/Crowley optional, any rating.” I still think I will add more to this fic in future, but I can't say when. The 40 hour work week is cruel mistress, as is Civ V. Anyway, thanks for reading and see y'all at 2016's exchange!

Small and unassuming, the little red book peeked out between a bundle of disco LPs and an unopened box of fairy lights. The upper right corner of the cover was sadly bent, but in a way it looked like a little hand, seductively beckoning Aziraphale closer.

Plucking the book out of its hiding place, Aziraphale flipped to the first page – Yes! It was! Cradling it carefully, Aziraphale rushed to the harried looking woman guarding the cashbox and purchased his spectacular find for a grand total of £3.50. He didn’t stop to look at anything else as he practically skipped away from the estate sale and made a beeline back to his bookshop. If he bent space-time a little, _tiny_ bit so he got there in half the time, well, he was just eager to get back to work.

And conducting a thorough examination of this, _this_ precious red book, was definitely doing the Lord’s work. _The Prophesies of Dido Logos of Naphlion_ , probably the rarest book of prophesy to come out of the 19th century, was completely and utterly wrong on almost all accounts except for the prediction of a comet. This one correct prediction was enough to gain Dido a small cult following that later disappeared into obscurity. It would have been completely worthless to Aziraphale if not for one definite fact: He had met Dido in 1853, just in passing, and she saw him for what he actually was. She pointed right at him and said “You’re an Angel, aren’t you? Can you get rid of this rash on my tit? It’s been driving me mad for a week.” Startled, Aziraphale not only healed the rash, but also cured the lifelong allergy that caused it, and then fled.

Dido’s prophesies were collected by her few remaining followers after her death and published. Only about 200 copies were ever made and now, _now_ Aziraphale held one of those tomes in his very hands. Dido may have been a genuinely awful prophet, but she knew an Angel when she saw one, and that alone was enough for Aziraphale. Perhaps there were clues in her writings as to how she knew what he was.

So, he made himself some cocoa, dug a notebook and pen out of a very neatly organized pile of random items, and sat down in the back room with _Dido_. Hours passed interrupted only by a couple of inquisitive would-be customers knocking loudly on the door to the shop. Aziraphale shooed them away as politely as possible (with an oh-so-polite mental nudge to steer clear of his place in the future) and kept on reading. It wasn’t until about 3 in the morning that something else made him pause.

He grit his teeth and sneered at what he found.

About three-quarters of the way through the book, in the margins of a chapter dedicated to Dido’s ramblings about flying chariots and clock-work servants, some mendicant had scribbled a string of words. The ink was a faded dark brown, so it wasn’t recent, and it was written in an antiquated form of Greek. Aziraphale had to squint and look very closely to read what the scrawl said. He read it first in old Greek, then in English.

“Never far… as smoke from the fire… rising yet bound. The Almighty strike at thee should the tether be broken before the Word is spoken for the Lady Dido… my one and only. ” Aziraphale wished his mug of cocoa full again and huffed. “Well I hope for their sake they took a poetry class or two before they tried that again. Not exactly Donne, are you?” He erased the chicken-scratch and kept reading, occasionally flipping back to compare notes.

Around 4 o’ clock, the phone rang. Ten minutes later, it rang again. Three minutes after that it rang yet _again_. A few seconds later, it rang and then was knocked to the floor by an unseen force. Aziraphale had switched to Rooibos and was just considering digging out some Wagon Wheels he knew he had somewhere when the _locked_ front door of the shop swung open with a crash.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley shrieked, barreling through the front room and skidding to a halt in front of Aziraphale’s chair. He was breathing fast and his voice had a reedy tone to it. He was soaked with sweat. Carefully placing _Dido_ aside, Aziraphale started to get up but Crowley suddenly collapsed into his lap.

They both stayed like that for a minute, Crowley panting face-down into Aziraphale’s knees, half-way on the floor; Aziraphale, stunned, his arms raised in a sort ‘don’t shoot!’ position.  It was very uncomfortable and definitely not the least bit enjoyable for Aziraphale. At all. Definitely.

“Uh,” said Aziraphale. Crowley didn’t respond until a few minutes later.

“Oooh, my fuck,” he groaned. He woozily lifted his head and removed his sunglasses so he could rub his eyes. “Thanks for the help, Angel. You’re a real pal.”

“What? Oh, that was you calling?”

Crowley gave him a scalding look.

“Well, I’m sorry, I was just looking over a spectacular find –“ Aziraphale started sourly, but Crowley cut him off with a _Tsk!_ And unsteadily got to his feet.

“I called _four times_! How is that not obviously an emergency?” he demanded.

“Sorry, I was just caught up – what kind of emergency?”

“One that’s _passed_ , I guess. About an hour ago I got a splitting headache and… burning all over. I thought I was being attacked! It just started to go away when I ran over here.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. He cleared his throat and got up. Crowley was still standing so close that it was difficult to slide past him and into the kitchenette.

“Has that ever happened before?” he asked, getting down a couple of clean glasses.

“No, never!” Crowley said. “It felt like Holy Water, but as soon as I got here it just… stopped. I swear I could feel my body starting to _disintegrate_ – oh. Sorry.”

Aziraphale gave a weak smile. Crowley was standing very, very close again, practically backing the Angel up against the bench.

“Dear boy, do you—“

“Oh, pardon…” Crowley dithered around the kitchen a bit, leaning against a countertop but then pacing back and forth as Aziraphale selected a wine. “I don’t get it! Downstairs hasn’t contacted me directly in years, not since the – the _you know_.  Most I’ve gotten is the regular paperwork. It doesn’t even smoke anymore when I open it! Have you…?”

“The same,” Aziraphale said, pouring two glasses of red. “Radio silence, just the usual forms. If they _were_ planning some kind of attack… no, that’s not really their style.”

“Oh really?” said Crowley, taking a proffered glass. His hands trembled very slightly, but Aziraphale pretended not to notice.

“Really,” Aziraphale said. “If they were going to go after you there would have been miles of paperwork about it and you would have got a visitation. Probably from me, actually. They’d have sent orders and I would have had to, oh, I don’t know, appear before you in a great ostentatious pillar of fire and tell you to _‘Piss off, or else’_.”

While they were talking, they wandered into the back room, and Aziraphale took his seat again. He was about to take a pull of wine when he was suddenly being sat on.

“Crowley?” he said after what had to be the longest and most awkward silence between them since the whole Inquisition thing.

Crowley sprang up, sloshing wine out of his glass. It actually made it all the way to the floor, and a few drops even splashed Crowley’s white shirt, which was the most startling thing.

“I – I don’t know why I did that,” Crowley said, backing away from Aziraphale.

“You’re… stressed. Sit down,” Aziraphale said. It wasn’t the best effort at avoiding the elephant, but it would have to do. Crowley sat on _him_ , for Someone’s sake.

Crowley sat bird-like on the edge of the worn armchair opposite Aziraphale’s. He passed his glass back and forth between his hands and took a bracing drink.

“How sure are you that it’s not your people?” he said, squinting at the Angel over his sunglasses. His eyes were a bit on the reddish side rather than the usual bright yellow. Aziraphale sniffed and took a delicate sip.

“Positive. As positive as you are that it’s not your lot, in any case.”

Crowley made a noise like a he was grinding metal between his teeth. He shot the last of his wine and then stood up, brushing off his sleek sports coat and adjusting his glasses.

“Well then,” he said. “Well, I’m off. It’s gone away for now and if there’s some kind of –“

“Exorcist?” Aziraphale suggested, setting his wine aside and standing up, hands outstretched to… pat Crowley? Keep him from leaving? He put his hands in his pockets.

“I was thinking some idiot with too much time and a lucky find in incantations, but that’s close enough. I’ll be back when I’ve taken care of it.”

He fairly flounced out.

Aziraphale listened to Crowley’s brisk footsteps and the slam of the front door. He picked up his wine and took a considering sip. Then he slugged the rest of it and slumped back into his chair. There was no point in trying to read more of _Dido_ now. What had that been about? Crowley came and went as he pleased, visiting regardless of the hour or whatever Aziraphale was doing.

However, he had never, not once in the entire history of their acquaintance, thrown himself at Aziraphale’s feet or sat in his lap. Well, at least ever during the sober parts of their acquaintance. They both silently agreed to ignore and forget any embarrassing drunken episodes that may have occurred during the 6000+ years they’d known each other.

Aziraphale, for lack of anything better to do, started to wash the glasses and his tea mug by hand when, yet again, Crowley came crashing through the front door. Unbraced by the chair, this time Aziraphale toppled over when Crowley leapt at him in a full-body tackle. His head cracked against the wood floor and he lay there, dazed, being… cuddled. No, _clutched_. Slowly absorbed into Crowley’s physical being by sheer force. He was still feeling woozy when Crowley jumped up and then suddenly blinked out of existence, only to reappear seconds later to spend a few minutes hugging Aziraphale’s prostrate form.

By the time Aziraphale had gotten his head together enough to heal his minor concussion and get up off the floor, Crowley had left again, this time by foot.

“Crowley! What in the _fu_ -“ Aziraphale yelled, but Crowley was out the door, walking slowly and counting each pace out loud.

He came slouching back in again about five minutes later. He looked squinty and sour, like he was hungover. He shuffled up to Aziraphale, who at this point was just standing in the middle of the kitchenette, resigned to watching whatever nonsense this was play out, and caught him in a very awkward side-hug before continuing into the back room to slump into one of the armchairs.

“100 paces,” he said. “I can get 100 paces from you before it starts up again.”

Aziraphale wordlessly drooped into an armchair. “That’s barely down to the end of the road,” he said.

“Just short of it,” Crowley corrected.

“And you have to… grab me,” Aziraphale said.

“Apparently. It helps.

Aziraphale did a quick mental calculation. Crowley ranged all over London in his day-to-day goings on while he himself was far more sedentary. His Mayfair apartment alone was over 8000 paces away.

“I don’t suppose you’d mind me accompanying you to your business meetings or whatever it is that you do?”

Crowley gave him a horrified look.  Rather than being offended, Aziraphale silently concurred. Going everywhere with Crowley would require leaving the shop and being out in public for _hours_. And not even in a restaurant where at the very least you didn’t have to talk to more than the one person sharing your table. Dear Lord, even the mere prospect was a nightmare. The alternative, Crowley hanging around the shop while they figured this out wasn’t all bad, but Aziraphale wasn’t keen on having a sulking Demon languishing all over his armchairs while he was trying to have some alone time with his books.

“We can’t just wait for this to wear off. Anything powerful enough to affect _me_ ,” said Crowley haughtily, “Isn’t some pansy spell that’ll go away on its own.”

“Do you have any idea what it might be?” Aziraphale said, raking a hand through his hair.

“Not a clue. I usually don’t bother with that kind of stuff. Spellwork is disgusting. There’s always some kind of rodent or planetary alignment bollocks involved. Why go through all the trouble of cursing someone when you can just post a bad photo of them on Twitter?”

“Well, I don’t have any books on it,” Aziraphale said helplessly.

“You don’t?” said Crowley, bewildered.

“No! Prophesy and spells are completely different, unless you count scrying, which is wooly at best and went out of style in- Oh, never mind. I don’t have any of that kind of dancing-naked-in-the-woods, crystal-swinging nonsense here.”

They sat in silence for a minute, apparently lost in how much they disliked fooling around in human magic.

“Right then,” Crowley announced finally. “Get some bread, we need to feed some ducks.”


End file.
